Weekly Culture Round-up: 9/6 – 9/12
The History of a Boroughscape — Brooklyn’s architecture has been reactive to the seismic cultural and political shifts of the changing times, from the rapidly modernizing post-industrial landscape of the early-to-mid 20th century all the way to present day issues with gentrification affecting cultural visibility in an increasing number of neighborhoods. This history is profoundly expressed in the photography on display in BRIC’s new “Brooklyn Photographs” exhibition, a collection of works from eleven photographers that portray the changing landscape of Brooklyn’s communities from the 1960s to modern day. BRIC is hosting an opening reception tonight at 7:00 PM, but if you can’t make it, no worries, the exhibition is on view September 7 through October 29.
BRIC 9/6 & 9/7-10/29
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Life as It Really Is — Fall theatre season is beginning and to start it off right, Playwrights Horizons brings the world premiere of The Treasurer, a Chekhovian moral drama that focuses on the peril that the modern family endures when close to the edge, facing almost certain financial disaster. Struggling to make ends meet as their aging mother’s mid-life crisis swells into a self-destructive free fall, her two oldest sons task the third and the youngest with managing the immense financial burden the family faces. At times darkly, absurdly comic and at others severely resonant with the economic anxieties of the present, The Treasurer’s meditation on familial strife is a deeply personal, Dostoyevsky-esque tale of suffering and redemption.
Playwrights Horizons 9/6-10/22
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Enter the Danger Zone —Bushwick is in for a real treat as Buffalo-born glam rocker Matthew Danger Lippman brings his fusion of soul, funk, and punk rock to The Gateway, a slick, two-stage concert space tucked away on Broadway, underneath the Jamaica Line. Often clad in a rattlesnake skin jacket meant to represent his individuality and belief in personal freedom—à la Nicolas Cage in Wild at Heart (1990)—Lippman, flamboyant style aside, carries himself with a rather leisurely demeanor, drifting from the stage into the crowd like a chameleon, bringing to mind the infectious, transgressive flair of a 70s glam art rock star if he got into slacker hip hop in the 90s. Thursday, September 7 is his birthday and to celebrate the occasion he’s being joined by fellow acts Ex-Pat, Hah., and Dean Chatham for a night of dazzling spectacle and sonic excellence. The Danger himself cordially invites you to join him and friends in all the lavish festivities: “There’ll be cake, cabaret, glam pop, hip hop, psych pink sound explorations…what more do ya need?”
The Gateway 9/7
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Digital Love — The French New Wave redefined the way we look at cinema, its numerous architects developing distinctive, experimental methods and modes of expression the likes of which the medium had never seen before. By the turn of the millennium, many of these venerable artists had careers spanning decades, over time adopting all sorts of advances in filmmaking technology, especially digital cinematography, perhaps the ideal successor to the compact film cameras used during their nascence; both tools similarly of revolutionary capabilities. “These new small cameras, they are digital, fantastic. Their effects are stroboscopic, narcissistic, and even hyper-realistic.” narrates Agnes Varda, in a direct address elaborating upon the introspective capabilities of this new technology, that is, their ability to take from their surroundings, much like her scavenging “gleaner” subjects in the outsider ethnographic documentary The Gleaners and I (2000). Gleaners will be playing as part of BAMcinématek’s “Plus ça change: French New Wave in the New Millennium” series, alongside vital films from Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais, and Chris Marker, to name but a few.
BAMcinématek 9/8-9/17
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A Carnival of Souls— If you find yourself burning the midnight oil this weekend in search of something to see, look no further than Nitehawk Cinema’s screenings of the classic anime anthology, Robot Carnival (1987), a 90-minute collection of short films from some of the industry’s most remarkable visionaries. Imaginative and hallucinatory, this vivid omnibus film probes the psyche to unleash the experimental potential of animation. See it with some buds this Friday and Saturday as it screens on a rare 35mm print.
Nitehawk Cinema 9/8 & 9/9
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